ISLAMABAD (APP) – President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday said Pakistan required a dynamic approach to address the threats to regional peace amid the challenging global scenario.
Addressing the inaugural session of Islamabad Conclave 2023 themed ‘Pakistan in a Changing World’ organised by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI), the president said Pakistan must consciously rediscover its vision in the wake of superpowers’ rivalries and interference of neighbouring states.
The president emphasised close liaison among politicians and parliamentarians, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence for effective deliberations and policy-making.
He said Pakistan’s strategic shift from geo-politics to geo-economic, as well as the regional situation in the wake of India’s belligerence needed its policies to be in line with regional and systemic developments.
The president said the civilised world today had forgotten the principles of morality and was witnessing prevalence of wars waged by the powerful against weaker segments.
The situation in Gaza, he said, was an alarming sign of the apathy of the world which could not stop the massacre of innocent people including women and children.
He regretted that even the gory imagery of Gaza killings could not shake the world’s conscience, describing it as a failure of the intellect of mankind.
The president recalled that decades ago, the world after several war-related massacres in Europe had arrived at the culmination of peace treaties and formed bodies, such as the United Nations (UN).
However, he pointed out that now every rule made by the civilised world as a lesson learned after several wars, was being undermined.
Dr Alvi said that allowing few states the right of veto power was in fact the first failure of the mankind to bow before the vested interests.
War, he said, was not a solution to resolve any conflict and always resulted in a never-ending vicious cycle of violence.
He expressed disappointment over the approach of democratic countries supporting wars, and said morality must be the anchor of human thinking.
He said the world at the moment direly needed the approach of love, empathy and forgiveness.
In Pakistan’s current political scenario, he said, the same spirit of forgiveness and empathy was lacking, and added that the nations evolved on the basis of these factors.
Besides conflicts, he said, the world faced several threats, such as skewed development, immigration problems in first-world countries as result of the conflicts in third-world countries, increasing poverty, artificial intelligence, nuclear weaponisation and environmental changes.
President Alvi stressed the need for adhering to the principles of socio-economic justice among communities by extending equal opportunities in all fields of life.
He said the real progress was linked with a just distribution of wealth, uplifting the downtrodden and empowering women.
The president lauded the contribution of the ISSI as a leading think-tank that carried out deliberations on the matters of national, regional and international importance.